Michael Thom has left a new comment on your post "New Hymn To Universalism:Conceived in the CLC (sic...":
I have not posted at this forum before, but since you have found fault with my hymn, I would like to make a few comments.
First, let me say that I believe that the sinner is justified before God by faith, and not by works of the law. Faith in Christ is the hand by which we sinners receive all of the gifts that God offers in and through our Savior. This is the individual, subjective appropriation of the work of Christ.
Having said that, I would also like to respond to what is implied in your use of red letters in my hymn.
In the first verse, you apparently saw something wrong with the words “and in Your heart of hearts, O Lord, You loved each one the same.” These words were intended to say the same thing as the Lord said in John 3:16, “God so loved the world…” I would hope that it is stating the obvious to say that “the world” is each and every soul. God loved each one. And His love for each one was a genuine, real, 100% love. He did not love some more than others. He wanted every one to be saved. He sent His Son for every sinner.
In the third verse you highlighted “that all the world might be released from sin and death and hell, And have instead His righteousness and in His presence dwell.” Again, I see nothing unscriptural in these words. The phrase is intended to be understood as conveying God’s purpose or intent. Why did God send forth His Son and lay on Him the sins of the world? It was God’s purpose or intent that the end result of His Son’s life and death would be that every sinner would be saved and enjoy eternal life with Him in heaven. This is what Scripture says (John 1:29; 1 Tim 2:4), and I believe this is easily understood in the words of this verse.
Verses four and five refer to God’s universal verdict of innocent in Christ. Jesus completely paid the penalty for every sinner’s guilt through His passive obedience. By His active obedience He satisfied every demand of God’s law. On the third day God the Father raised His Son to life, thereby declaring to all the world that He has accepted the life and death of Christ as full payment and as the required righteousness for every person in all of history. The resurrection of Jesus is God’s judicial declaration to each and every sinner: For Jesus’ sake I declare your punishment paid in full and My righteous requirements fully met.
That judicial declaration gives power to the Gospel invitation: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” Through faith in Jesus, the individual sinner appropriates for himself that universal verdict. It is in Christ, and only in Christ, that God declares this world of sinners forgiven and righteous. (The sinner who stands apart from Christ chooses to go it alone before God’s judgment throne and will get what his unrighteousness has earned.)
This is what has been taught for generations in conservative Lutheranism. In Francis Pieper’s comments on 2 Cor. 5:19, he says: “The katallassein of Rom 5:10 and 2 Cor 5:19 does not refer…to any change that occurs in men, but describes an occurrence in the heart of God. It was God who laid His anger by on account of the ransom brought by Christ. It was God who at that time already had in His heart forgiven the sins of the whole world, for the statement: ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself’ means – and that is not our, but the Apostle’s own interpretation – that God did ‘not impute their trespasses unto them.’ And ‘not imputing trespasses’ is, according to Scripture (Rom 4:6-8) synonymous with ‘forgiving sins,’ ‘justifying’ the sinner. The resurrection of Christ is, as Holy Writ teaches, the actual absolution of the whole world of sinners. Rom 4:25: ‘Who was raised again for our justification.’ At that time we were objectively declared free from sin. (Christian Dogmatics, II, 348).
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GJ - All the content comes from Calvinism via Pietism. Discerning readers will observe that the efficacy of the Word in the Means of Grace is never mentioned in these defenses of UOJ. Nor do we ever learn how the Holy Spirit only works through the Word and never apart from the Word. Both Biblical doctrines, which are foundational, never seem to come up when UOJ is being promoted. If the Means of Grace are mentioned, as Buchholz did, the topic is tacked on, duct tape on a bad do-it-yourself project.
The fragments of the Olde Synodical Conference are united on UOJ, even the micro-mini shards, and in perfect agreement with ELCA.
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Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Additional Attempts To Rescue Crypto-Universalism,...":
All of Michael's unscriptural defenses for the false gospel of UOJ have been discussed at length on Ichabod, Extra Nos, Bailing Water and elsewhere - even down to UOJ's withered hand of faith.
It's important to point out what his defense of UOJ really shows: that the whole world has received, in their unbelief, the adoption of sons. In order for God to declare the world righteous in Christ they have to be given the only righteousness available. That righteousness is Christ's, it is what an heir of Christ receives and having been given Christ's righteousness, UOJ teaches (contrary to Scripture and the Confessions), the whole world is forgiven of all sin, justified and declared righteous by God.
UOJ therefore teaches - having the righteousness of Christ imputed doesn't bring salvation. That forgiveness of all sins - a guiltless verdict - doesn't bring salvation. That being justified before God by Christ's righteousness doesn't save.
The heinous nature of the false gospel of UOJ is clearly shown when you look at what it teaches concerning Christ's righteousness and God's will. Christ's atonement becomes insufficient, inadequate.
UOJ also teaches that even having Christ's righteousness doesn't remove the sin of unbelief. His righteousness didn't cover that sin. UOJ teaches that's the only sin which men go to Hell for. How then does the sin of unbelief, which we were all born with, ever get paid? Why doesn't Christ's righteousness remove the guilt of that sin along with the others? If Christ's righteousness, imputed to the whole unbelieving world, didn't pay for the sin of unbelief - what does? Bueller...Bueller?
I'll tell you that whoever wields the power to remove the sin of unbelief is the real god in regards to the gospel of UOJ. What does UOJ say about this. UOJ teaches that when YOUR faith believes that God already imputed Christ's righteousness to you for the forgiveness of all your sins, even before you were born, the sin of unbelief is removed and you then, and only then, will be saved.
The god of UOJ is Y...O...U!
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GJ - Or, "You owe Jay." I find it odd that Jay Webber and Paul McCain spend so much time on Jack Cascione's LutherQueasy, mainly because they worry so much about their
"My sect is imperfect? Come closer, foul demon from the underworld."
